They can’t escape the heat… Magdalene Deluca isn’t the damsel-in-distress type.

But if she has to involve a stranger in a dangerous chase through South America, she’s glad Finn Kavanagh’s the guy she sucked into her problems. Very glad. The man oozes sex and magnetic confidence. And since their connection is steamier than the sultry rain forest, why waste time resisting him?

Finn’s peaceful vacation is blown to bits the second Mags strides into view. For years he’s ignored his family’s pleas to settle down. Now he’s falling hard for a blonde force of nature who’s allergic to commitment. First he has to keep Mags safe as they search for her missing parents. Then they can determine if it’s time to stop running—and take a chance on the wildest thrill he’s ever known…

Reviewers love New York Times bestselling author SUSAN ANDERSEN

“A hot, sexy, yet touching story.”

—Kirkus Reviews on Some Like It Hot

“This warm summer contemporary melts hearts with the simultaneous blossoming of familial and romantic love.”

—Publishers Weekly on That Thing Called Love

“A smart, arousing, spirited escapade that is graced with a gentle mystery, a vulnerable, resilient heroine, and a worthy, wounded hero and served up with empathy and a humorous flair.”

—Library Journal on Burning Up

“This start of Andersen’s new series has fun and interesting characters, solid action and a hot and sexy romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on Cutting Loose

“Snappy and sexy… Upbeat and fun, with a touch of danger and passion, this is a great summer read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Coming Undone

“Lovers of romance, passion and laughs should go all in for this one.”

—Publishers Weekly on Just for Kicks

“Andersen again injects magic into a story that would be clichéd in another’s hands, delivering warm, vulnerable characters in a touching yet suspenseful read.”

—Publishers Weekly starred review on Skintight

“A classic plotline receives a fresh, fun treatment…. Well-developed secondary characters add depth to this zesty novel, placing it a level beyond most of its competition.”

—Publishers Weekly on Hot & Bothered

Running Wild

Susan Andersen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

Some years back, I had a trilogy I called the Sisterhood Diaries. In the first book, Cutting Loose, the hero’s brother Finn Kavanagh featured quite prominently. Then he grabbed himself another role in Playing Dirty (book three). I gotta admit, from the time he began coming to life for me on a manuscript page, I wanted to make him the hero of his own story. And readers apparently agreed, for in the interim between the beginning of that series and now, I’ve received an astounding amount of email asking when Finn would get his own book.

The answer, of course, is “It’s heeerrrre!” I’m so excited that the stars finally aligned and the perfect heroine for Finn at last presented herself to me. Heaven knows she took her sweet time. But Magdalene Deluca was worth waiting for as well, because from the moment Finn intervened when a drug cartel soldier tries to kidnap her at gunpoint outside a little South American cantina, the sparks they generate caught even me by surprise.

I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I did writing it. And my wish, for those of you who took time out of your schedules to drop me a note asking for Finn’s book, is that I did him justice in your eyes.

Happy reading!

Susan

This is dedicated, with love to Lois Faye Dyer, who is one of my favorite people. Thanks so much for brainstorming this story with me—and all our years of you/me/and Stef lunches, even if we sometimes have to go to another state before we find the time to get together.

To Stefanie (Hargreaves) Sloan. You’re as big a sweetie as yo’ mama, and I treasure my times with you every bit as much as the ones with her.

And last but not least, to Margo Lipschultz, for years of kickass editing and friendship. You always make my books better. And have you noticed that when we get on the phone, we don’t get off in under an hour?

You guys rock.

Susan

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Santa Rosa, El Tigre—South America

THE BLONDE STRODE into the cantina as if she owned the joint, instantly snagging Finn Kavanagh’s attention. The afternoon had been laden with impulses and he congratulated himself on following the one that had brought him here.

He’d only arrived in the capital city of this tiny South American country some forty-five minutes ago. After the usual long day of travel frustrations, he’d fully intended to head straight to the hostel that a Kavanagh Construction vendor had recommended. But when the always-in-motion network of overhead gondolas caught his attention, he’d hitched his backpack over one shoulder and tracked down the nearest Metrocable station instead.

As he’d ridden toward the crest of the crazy-steep hill to the north, he’d enjoyed the hell out of the bird’s-eye view of the sprawling, bustling city in the valley below. Mountain views from every angle and a river that cleaved the town in two took an already amazing vista and turned it into something flat-out spectacular, sending him reaching for his camera. The higher the gondola had risen on its steep climb to the destination station, however, the more run-down the area below had become. Shanties stood cheek-to-jowl on the flats and if the patchwork roofs were anything to go by, the places were made from whatever materials the dweller could scrounge. More rickety dwellings supported by fragile-looking stilts rose out of the verdant green foliage of the hillside. From Finn’s overhead perspective, the area looked big-time poverty-stricken.

The woman who pushed through the door, on the other hand, looked like a million bucks. He frowned, because that wasn’t quite right. The vibe she projected wasn’t even close to rich girl. But she was sure as hell easy on the eyes.

Real easy.

Not that he could put an exact finger on what it was about her that so captured his attention. She was pretty, yes, but not at all his usual type. Okay, he didn’t really have a type. But he could honestly say he’d never gone for the punk girls.

And this chick was definitely that, with those sleek blond sidewalls and the longer, shaggier top that ended in bangs bisecting her eyebrows in edgy points. It was far from a look he was ordinarily drawn to, yet something about her was setting off serious sparkage.

And he honest-to-God didn’t understand why.

She was a medium-tall, blue-eyed blonde but, hell, he was thirty-four years old; he’d met an abundance of those. He couldn’t claim to have seen many blondes since arriving in this part of the world, but then he’d been here less than an hour. They held no novelty in Seattle, however, the city he’d called home since birth. And while she had a fine body, again it wasn’t Vegas-showgirl material.

Maybe it was the energy she projected so strongly that it practically generated a red aura around her. Or her general vibe, which hinted she not only knew the score, but had maybe even invented it. Hey, a man could hardly ask for more than that, right? Sipping the cold brew he’d ordered, he lounged back in his chair and watched as she strode up to the bar. He made no bones about eavesdropping when she ordered up a drink.

Not that it did him a helluva lot of good. She spoke in liquid, rapid-fire Spanish.

Okay, language barrier. That was kind of deflating. He didn’t know why he’d gotten the impression she was American. Maybe it was the fair skin and light hair in a room full of dark-complexioned, dark-haired people. Or the cargo shorts and double tank tops, or that shoulders-squared, tits-out posture with a ’tude. Whatever it was, her Spanish was fluid and sounded like no American-accented version he’d ever heard. He was hardly an expert, but he’d bet it was her first, and quite possibly only, language.

Damn.

The unexpected disappointment had him straightening in his chair. No. It was just as well. He’d come to El Tigre for a vacation, partly because he just plain needed one—and partly because lately he’d begun questioning the choices he’d made. Choices that until recently he’d found perfectly satisfying.

He laid the blame for the current rise in second-guessing himself squarely on his brother’s shoulders. Of the seven Kavanagh siblings, he was closest to Devlin in both age and shared interests—and last year Dev had gone and gotten himself hitched. The guy was so moon-faced in love with his wife, Jane, that Finn was kind of embarrassed for him.

Yet he found himself surprisingly envious as well. And that tipped so far to the left of normal he could hardly wrap his mind around it.

Despite—or more likely partly because of—Aunt Eileen’s constant harping about how it was time he traded in his bachelor ways for the love of a good woman, he’d always reveled in his single status. He’d sure as hell never harbored a burning desire to change from a me to a we. He got enough of that crap working side by side with his brothers every day. So when he’d suddenly begun questioning why he’d been patting himself on the back simply because he’d dodged having a special woman in his life for longer than a night or the occasional weekend, it had stirred up a never-before-encountered restlessness. An itchy sensation that had reached epic proportions when he’d started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t time he joined the ranks of the committed-to-one-relationship grown-ups.

So, hell, yeah, he was jumpy. His thoughts had never trekked that particular trail before. And he could honestly say he wasn’t all that thrilled to have them trekking it now.

That he was even thinking about settling down, however, had driven home how much he needed to get away and see if this was something he actually wanted—if maybe it was time he grew up and joined the marriage brigade that was an integral part of his large, extended family.

Or if he had simply been brainwashed by all the happy-happy shit that seemed to surround him these days.

His gut told him it was the latter, but with these chick-type thoughts popping into his head lately, who was to say his gut wasn’t overcompensating?

In any event, he didn’t have to figure out everything right this minute. All he really needed to do this evening was drink his beer, check out the pretty girl and contemplate which route in this part of the Andes he most wanted to hike. And relax. Yeah, especially that.

Above all else he’d come here to relax.

* * *

THIS WAS THE WORST damn birthday Magdalene Deluca could ever remember. God knew, a few back in her early teens had been pretty crappy, but that happened when a girl’s parents shipped her off to boarding school in order to free up more time to pour their missionary fervor into other people’s kids. Gazing at the shot of tequila the bartender had just given her, she was sorely tempted to toss it back where she stood and hold out the empty for a refill. Hey, she liked to party as much as the next woman and if she got a little buzzed...well, there was no one here she had to be accountable to for her behavior.

A bitter laugh escaped her. No shit.

All the same, she walked away from the bar, took a seat at a nearby table and simply stared for a moment into the pale amber liquor. Then she picked up a wedge of lime, bit into it and tossed back the shot of tequila. She shuddered as warmth flowed down her throat and spread through her veins. Yet it didn’t touch the coldness in the pit of her stomach. But that was her own fault. Because, dammit, would she never learn?

She’d taken a leave of absence from her life in California to come running down here. The last two letters from her mother had detailed Nancy Deluca’s distress with the way the Munoz cartel, over her frequent, clearly stated objections, kept trying to recruit some of the barely teenaged boys and girls the Delucas mentored. It wasn’t the letters alone that had brought Mags to El Tigre, however, although those had certainly set up a niggling in the pit of her stomach. It was the way all communication from her mom suddenly ceased after she’d received them. That had really made her get her butt in gear.

The abrupt lack of communication had given her a very bad feeling. Because while both the United States and the relatively newer, kinder El Tigre regime had worked to clean up the proliferation of drug cartels down here, plenty of crime syndicates still existed. So did the violence that accompanied them. And despite a bombardment of government-sponsored aerial herbicide spraying, illegal coca crops hadn’t been wiped out. Some of the minor grow farms had disappeared, but the larger cartels had merely scaled down their operations and redistributed them to a few smaller, harder-to-reach plots.

Mags hadn’t seen her parents in years. But she didn’t think for a minute that her very vocal mother had changed during their time apart. Nancy had never been shy about stating her disapproval over anything she considered wrong.

Mags worried that very fact might have put her parents in danger.

Well, fool me once, right? Because, it turned out she was a chump. No, hell, why be so modest?

She was the freakin’ queen of chumps.

She had dropped everything and wiped out her meager savings. Worse, she’d given up a prime makeup-artist position on a space epic that would have rocked and for which she had campaigned for over a year. All in order to run to the rescue.

God, wasn’t that rich? Considering she’d been informed by her parents’ landlord when she arrived at their place that the missionaries had gone back to the States on a sabbatical.

They’d just up and left. Without mentioning a word to her about it.

She knew it shouldn’t come as a shock, or feel like such a betrayal. Heck, she’d learned five months, two weeks and three days after her thirteenth birthday that not only wasn’t she a priority in her parents’ lives, but she was an obstruction to their accomplishing everything they’d come to El Tigre to get done. So if they didn’t feel the need to let her know that they’d be in the States for a while, well...fine, then. It was nothing new. And she frankly didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Or not much of one, anyhow.

Mags straightened in her seat. Why was she even thinking about this anyway? Families were what they were; whining about it was pointless. Looking around for something to distract her from her thoughts, she caught a guy checking her out.

Great. That was what she needed—some local lounge lizard looking to score. And yet...

Locking eyes when his lazy gaze reached her face, she found herself unable to look away. For one thing, she was wrong. His coloring might fit with the locals, but he was definitely American. It was clear in the clothing and excellent dentistry.

Brown hair flopped in deep-set bittersweet chocolate-colored eyes and it took some effort to tear her gaze away. But given the way the rest of her day had gone, gawking instead at the wide shoulders that topped what she could see of a lean, muscular frame probably wasn’t an improvement, so she went back to admiring that face.

Its flesh was close to the bone and, coupled with his long bony nose, gave him the austere look of a Trappist monk. Yet when she met his dark-eyed gaze again, she encountered a world of heat.

And for a single tempting instant she considered going over to his table and starting something up. She had a boatload of aggression she’d just love to work off.

But...no. She was going to collect the beater car she’d left down in the valley, where the economically depressed barrio that had been her folks’ most recent stomping grounds gave way to a neighborhood a bit more affluent. Or where she’d at least had less fear that she’d come back to find the car sitting on its axles, stripped of its few amenities. With a final regretful look at the hot monk guy, she picked up her huge purse and headed for the door, pulling the tote’s long strap over her head and settling the bag cross body as she walked.

The cantina had hardly been what anyone would call a bastion of silence, but the wall of sound that came off the streets the moment Mags pushed through the doors rocked her back on her heels. The engine of a high-end SUV roared as it started up and equally noisy motorcycles wove in and out of the ubiquitous old Volkswagens clogging the narrow avenue. Young men and women laughed and talked and called to each other as they made their way between bars and restaurants. A little girl on a big bicycle pedaled within an inch of Mags’s toes.

After dancing out of the kid’s way, she stopped at a donkey-drawn cart full of mangoes to escape the crush long enough to reset her mental compass. She bought two of the green-and-blush-colored fruits and dropped them into her purse, then made a beeline toward the street that would take her back to the route she’d used earlier to come up from the valley.

After learning her folks had bailed without so much as a forwarding address, she’d had a potent urge to burn off the overload of furious energy that made her nerves jump and her heart pound so furiously. But had she collected her rental car like a smart person would have and gotten her butt to the airport to catch the first plane out of here? Oh, no. She’d thought climbing the steep hills to this neighborhood was a good idea.

It didn’t make sense to her right now, but at the time it had struck her as a good way to work off her agitation.

And to some extent it had been.

Except now she was in no mood to navigate her way back down to the valley. Still, the sooner she got herself down the cliff-like hill, the sooner she could get her ass back to California. Clearly she wasn’t needed in El Tigre. And since it had only been late yesterday that she’d had to say thanks, but no thanks to the position on the film, maybe there was a slim chance she could still get in on the production.

Here’s hoping. Because she knew exactly what an enormous boost the gig would give her career. At the very least it would allow her to give up her other job.

And creating aliens with paints and putties would be a fabulous stress-buster. She could use that about now.

She walked several blocks before it occurred to her that she’d seen a cable station earlier when she’d been searching for a place to park the car. She couldn’t remember precisely where, and she had zero familiarity with Santa Rosa. In her golden pre-boarding-school days, she and her folks had lived first in rough-and-tumble Tacna, further south, then in a small township in the northern Amazon region.

But the Metrocable ran north and south, so even if it was a long walk between the station and her car, it would be on level ground. And that beat picking her way down the near-vertical hills.

Content to have a plan, she about-faced and started back the way she’d come.

She’d reached the main street and had just come to the opposite end of the block from the cantina where she’d had her drink when a man suddenly materialized out of nowhere and shoved her up against the brick building. Heart slamming up against the wall of her chest, she sucked in a deep breath, prepared to scream her head off.

Before she could, however, a rough, dry-skinned hand covered her mouth. The man, who wasn’t much taller than she—and was a good ten years younger—shoved his face close to hers. “I’ll take my hand away if you agree not to scream,” he said in colloquial Spanish. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make a fuss. Comprende?”

Not really, but she nodded her head.

“Good,” he said, dropping his hand and taking a short step back. “You’re coming with me. Victor Munoz wants to talk to you.”

* * *

YAWNING, FINN PAUSED on the street outside the cantina and looked around to get his bearings. The long day’s travel was catching up with him and he was ready to go find that hostel.

Even knowing the Metrocable station was to the left, his gaze automatically went right. And he shook his head. “Huh. You again.”

The same punk-rocker blonde who’d grabbed his attention by the short hairs in the cantina reached out long metaphoric fingers to latch onto them again. He still didn’t get why she had such a pull on him, but he couldn’t look away from her and a guy who looked barely out of his teens as they stood nose-to-nose a short distance away.

He frowned. The kid might be young, but something about him looked menacing. Maybe it was the way he had Blondie crowded against a wall, or maybe it was the gangbanger vibe of his clothing. The reason didn’t matter. Blondie didn’t look happy, and although Finn couldn’t hear their conversation he got the distinct impression they were arguing.

And that was before he saw the thug grip her arm when she slapped her hands to his chest and shoved him back. Finn started walking in their direction.

He heard the quick patois of their exchange as he drew near and was mere feet away when he saw the blonde suddenly freeze. Then she jerked her arm free. Instead of shoving the youth back again, however, she thrust her nose right up under his.

“What?” Her voice rose in incredulity, but if something the guy had said blindsided her, it didn’t prevent her from drilling his chest with a fierce finger. “Let’s hear it, Speedy Gonzales,” she said with a you-will-tell-me authority that Finn would’ve had a hard time ignoring—and he was accustomed to dealing with customers a lot tougher than this chick.

The thug just pokered up. “My name is not Speedy,” he spat, clearly insulted—and the fact he got bent out of shape not because she’d challenged his authority, but had assigned him a less-than-macho moniker, reinforced Finn’s impression of the young man’s youth. The kid thumped a fist off his chest. “I am Joaquin.”

“You could be Jesus Himself,” she snapped, “and I’d ask the same thing—my folks are where?”

That’s when it kicked in that she was speaking American English. Yet even as the reason for his sudden ability to comprehend the conversation registered, she snapped what he could only assume were the same questions in Spanish.

Finn didn’t have a clue what this Joaquin character had said to precipitate the full-metal-jacket questions she shot at him like an unceasing barrage of bullets from a semiautomatic. But from the look on his face, the kid realized he’d made a major mistake.

And that could be bad, because guys that age already harbored a serious need to prove their machismo at every turn. Throw in the possible gangbanger element and things could turn ugly fast.

Sure enough, even as Finn watched, Joaquin’s hand reached for the small of his back. The other male stood in profile to him, so he saw the butt of a gun as Joaquin fumbled beneath the hem of his shirt.

Finn was on the move before the weapon cleared the little shit’s waistband. With no time to consciously think the matter through, he simply yanked off his backpack and took the final Mother-may-I-worthy giant step that brought him within range. Then, gripping his pack by its straps, he swung it at the young man’s head.

It connected with a solid thwack and knocked the punk to his knees. The gun dropped from Joaquin’s hand and skittered a few feet away. Finn lunged for it, his only thought to keep it out of the other guy’s hands. But before he could get his own hand around the pistol grip, the blade of a monstrous knife slashed down, aiming for his fingers.

Swearing a blue streak, Finn jerked them out of range. Jesus. The kid must have a head made of ironwood if he’d recovered that fast. And Joaquin clearly had no intention of letting Finn get his hands on the weapon. Not without drawing blood, anyhow.

With no other real option in sight, Finn kicked the gun as far away from both of them as he could.

“Go, go, go!” The blonde’s voice was insistent as she grabbed him by his free hand and they took off at a dead run in the direction of the Metrocable.

The woman could move and they covered the distance to the station in no time. She danced in place like a toddler in need of a bathroom as she dug a fistful of El-TIPs—the country’s official pesos—out of her pocket, taking quick glances over her shoulder the whole while.

Then she abruptly stilled. “Shit! He’s coming after us.” She looked around wildly. “Where the hell is help when you really need it?” she demanded, turning back and shoveling pesos into the ticket machine. “I was told these stations are lousy with security.” She punched buttons at a dizzying rate.

The machine spit out two tickets and she grabbed his hand again. “C’mon, let’s go!”

They went through the turnstiles and onto the platform as a gondola swung around the turnabout and slowed to a crawl a few feet away. It disgorged its passengers in front of them, and since they were the only ones currently waiting they climbed aboard. As one, they turned to watch Joaquin as the young man raced up to a ticket machine, shoving a woman about to use it out of his way.

“Nice guy,” Finn muttered. “I’m surprised he didn’t just jump the turnstile.” It wasn’t like the asshole was your basic law-and-order type.

“Security might not’ve been around for us to report Joaquin’s gun, but according to my mother they’re on jumpers like white on rice.”

The door to the gondola doors hissed closed and, with the slightest of jerks, the car picked up its pace once again. Finn took his first deep breath since this business began and slowly expelled it. Finally having a second that didn’t feel fraught with danger, he shrugged on his pack and adjusted its straps.

Then he turned his attention on the blonde. The girl had soft, seriously pretty lips, great skin and a slight dent in her chin, but right at this moment he couldn’t summon up a good goddamn about any of that. Instead he looked her dead in her pretty blue eyes.

And snapped, “Who are you, lady? And what the fuck is going on here?”

CHAPTER TWO

MAGS’S ADRENALINE SPIKE hit the skids and she sagged against the wall of the gondola, small tremors quaking every muscle in her body. She stared at the man who had come to her rescue.

“I’m Mags Deluca,” she said in response to his question. “Thanks for the intervention.” She didn’t know anyone else who would have stepped in to help her the way he had and that fact had her chin lifting in pure reflex. “Not that I couldn’t have taken care of the matter myself.” Maybe.

“Yeah, I could see how well that was working for you.”

Tempted as she was to dig in and keep defending her not particularly defensible position, honesty compelled her to admit, “Not many people would’ve involved themselves in a stranger’s problems, especially when it meant going up against a guy bristling with guns and knives.”

He hitched a broad shoulder. “I have three sisters, a mom, two grandmothers and a boatload of aunts and girl cousins,” he said. “It’s been drilled into me from birth to involve myself if I see a chick in trouble.” His voice hardened. “But I’d like to know what the hell I just got myself into.”

“Ohmigawd,” she breathed in awe, totally diverted. “You have three sisters?”

“And three brothers.” He gave her a level look. “Which doesn’t answer my question.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said and, with the wave of her hand, knocked away the envy that surged at the thought of having not just one sibling you could call your own, which would be awesome enough, but six of them. Just the idea had made her forget for a moment how shaky her grasp on her courage was, but meeting his hard-eyed will-you-get-to-the-point stare, she shoved the distraction aside and wrestled herself back on track.

“My parents are missionaries,” she said and brought him up-to-date on the noise her mother had been making about the Munoz cartel’s recruitment of teens and the abrupt silence following Nancy’s letters.

When she fell silent, Finn said, “People still write letters? It’s the twenty-first century—I thought everyone and their brother emailed.”

“That’s your big takeaway from what I just told you? That my mother doesn’t email?” You would’ve thought she’d said Nancy sent telegraphs, and she gave her shoulder an infinitesimal hitch. “My folks have spent their entire adult lives ministering to the poor. And while there likely are computers and internet available even in the most poverty-stricken barrios, my mother would consider the time it took to learn to use them a frivolous waste when she can just as easily grab a sheet of paper and slap a stamp on an envelope.” Then she waved the interruption away and explained how, when she’d arrived at her parents’ apartment this afternoon, she’d been told they’d returned to the States.

“But when Joaquin had me against the wall, he said Victor Munoz wanted to talk to me. He’s the cartel leader.” Was that right? Suddenly it seemed supremely important that she have the correct terminology. “Or don or whatever you call the head guy who runs a cartel.”

Unlike her, he stuck to the point. “Try to stay on track here. Why did he want to talk to you?”

Another stray thought popped into her head and she blurted, “I don’t know your name.”

“What?” But he blinked dense, inky lashes over those dark eyes and shook his head as if to negate the question. “It’s Finn. Finn Kavanagh.”

Good name. But this time she knew better than to get sidetracked. “Unfortunately, Finn Kavanagh, he refused to answer that very question. He just kept saying I’d find out from Senor Munoz himself. But Joaquin’s clearly not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed because even as he was detailing all the dire things that could happen to me if I didn’t come quietly, he let slip that my parents are being held on the Munoz grow farm.”

“And your first reaction was to let him know you’d caught that?” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe anyone could have such a blonde moment.

“Hey!” Indignant, she shoved away from the gondola wall. “Excuse the heck out of me if I was rattled. I was already reeling from learning my parents had gone back to the States without saying word one to me about it. And then he tells me they’re being held prisoner by a drug lord? Hah!” She pointed at him. “That’s the job description I was looking for.” She promptly shook her head, however, because that was hardly the point and, in truth letting on that she’d caught Joaquin’s slipup hadn’t been her smartest move. “An-n-nd that’s so not important.” Looking Finn up and down, she had to admit that, unlike her, he practically oozed competency. “I’m sure you could have handled it much better.”

To her surprise, he flashed her a wry smile and said, “Probably not. I would’ve been rattled, too, if it involved my family. So what’s the plan? You want me to go with you when you take it to the cops?”

“I can’t go to the police.”

He jerked upright. “Are you shitting me? You have to report this!”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, Finn—I literally can’t. My mother devoted an entire letter to the way Munoz bragged about his favorite cousin, who’s in the Policía Nacional de El Tigre.” She could have added that 99 percent of her mother’s correspondence had to do with her and Brian’s ministry and their impatience and frustration with anything that interfered with it. But she didn’t, of course, because, truly, why should Finn Kavanagh care about her dysfunctional family relationships?

Still, it cheered her up to a surprising degree when he strung an impressive number of truly obscene words together, even though she knew it was in response to her comment, not her situation.

“My thoughts precisely,” she agreed. Looking past him, she tried to see into the gondolas behind them to determine which one Joaquin had caught. It was a fruitless endeavor, however; she could see nothing more than shadows. So she pulled a big, brilliantly colored scarf out of her voluminous tote and turned her attention back to Finn.

“Look, I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess,” she said, taking her hair out of the tight French twist she’d worn, with its fanned tail ratted and brushed forward to give her a short-haired punk/goth look. Finger-combing it until she could gather it all in one hand, she then tied it into a loose knot atop her head. “I’ve got a car down in the valley, so when we get to the station after next I’m going to do my best to bail without Joaquin seeing me. I honestly don’t believe he’ll be expecting me to get off this soon, since a smart person would choose the main station, where help is more readily available and where you can disappear into any one of a half-dozen regular Metro lines.” She wrapped, twisted and tied the scarf around her hair to disguise its color.

Finn cocked an eyebrow at her. “The crapshoot here being that Joaquin’s not all that smart.”

“Yeah. There is that. Still, I’m hoping someone drummed the idea into his head, because I think it’s my best chance to shake him.” She blew out an impatient breath. “But this is just a long-winded way around saying thank you for saving my butt. And that I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in El Tigre. It’s a great country.” Studying him, she tried to imagine him as a big nightclub kind of guy or wine enthusiast, both of which Santa Rosa offered. Somehow, though, he struck her as a bit too earthy to be either. “What brought you down here, anyhow?”

“The prospect of hiking this part of the Andes and maybe seeing a little of the Amazon.”

“Hiking, huh? That’s your idea of a vacation? Busting your butt, breathing thin air and sweating like a pony?”

His teeth flashed white. “Darlin’, that’s my idea of pure heaven. And one of the biggest perks? Not once in the wild have I gotten tangled up in a female’s problems.”

“Wow. You’re just an all-around silver-tongued devil, aren’tcha?” She sank to sit cross-legged on the floor and fished the pared-down version of her professional makeup kit out of her tote, then looked up to raise an eyebrow at him. “I bet people tell you that all the time.” Still, as they slowed to enter the first station she had to admit that if she was any example, he might have a point. Considering the only thing she’d contributed to his day so far was the prospect of getting shot or stabbed. Not to mention, until they were free and clear, the target she’d painted on his back.

“You should change your shirt,” she said. “And if you have a hat, it wouldn’t hurt to put that on, either.”

She half expected him to thump his chest in a me-big-man macho display, but he merely reached over his shoulders and grabbed two fistfuls of his Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt and hauled it off over his head.

Whoa! All the moisture in Mags’s mouth dried up as she stared up at his very nice, very buff upper torso. Honestly, a woman could light candles to that body.

The door swished open to display a couple of locals standing ready to board. When they saw her and Finn, however, they moved to the next car and a moment later, the door closed again. The gondola glided out of the station.

She was peering into a mirror, sponging foundation that was several shades deeper than her natural coloring onto her face, neck and hands, when the gondola jerked slightly as it approached her station. Nerves jittered through Mags’s stomach but she feigned calm while applying a coral lipstick that went with the scarf.

Fake it till you make it, that was her motto.

She threaded big silver hoops through her ears and returned the kit to her bag. After pulling out and donning her long-sleeved SPF shirt, she climbed to her feet.

As their car swung around the turnabout toward the debarkation point, she followed an impulse she knew she’d be smarter to suppress. She turned and crossed the short distance between her and Finn. Reaching up, she wrapped her palms around the back of his warm-skinned neck, curling her fingers to hold him in place. For one suspended moment, she looked into his eyes, which were now shaded by the bill of a faded Mariners cap. Then, rising onto her toes, she kissed him.

She’d intended something swift and sweet—a thank-you of sorts. But the instant their mouths touched, electric shock–like impulses hurtled through her veins and all she could think was gimme. And before she knew what was what, her lips had parted and she was kissing the bejeebers out of a man whose name she hadn’t even known a half hour ago.

Not that Finn was exactly a slouch when it came to getting with the program. Big-palmed hands slid down her back to grip her rear as he slanted his mouth over hers.

It took every drop of willpower she had to lower her heels back onto the floor, but she did so, breaking their connection. Stepping back, she touched a knuckle to her still-tingling lips. Then she slung the strap of her bag back over her head and, in an attempt to minimize anything that might set off recognition from Joaquin, positioned its bulk on the opposite side from where she usually wore it and slid on a pair of shades.

The doors whooshed open and she met Finn’s eyes. “Thanks again, Finn Kavanagh,” she said in a voice that sounded rusty. “You did your mama, three sisters, two grandmothers and boatload of aunts and girl cousins proud.”

Stepping out onto the platform, she slid on her iPod earphones. Then, pretending to move in time to music she hadn’t turned on, she carved a path for herself through the thankfully crowded station.

* * *

FINN STEPPED INTO the car’s open doorway to watch Mags salsa her way through the throng waiting to board. He ignored the people clumped up in front of the gondola even as they surged forward the second Mags cleared it. He was bumped and jostled but refused to budge. Instead, he did his best to keep Mags’s brightly patterned head-cover thing in view as his gondola inched along in one direction while she moved in and out of view in the opposite.

He was happy as a monkey with a peanut machine to have his vacation back, but he had to admit that while the past he-didn’t-know-how-many minutes had been far from relaxing, which, face it, was his chief goal for the next two weeks, they had sure as hell gotten his blood pumping. And as he’d watched her sit on the floor and transform herself with the help of only a few items, he’d found himself downright mesmerized.

And then there was the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the car. Her kiss.

Man. He hadn’t been expecting that and it had knocked his socks off.

Licking his bottom lip as if a ghost taste might have survived, he felt the cabin door trying to close against his side and stepped out onto the platform. He could always catch another car. But before he went whistling on his merry way, he intended to make sure Mags made a clean getaway.

His gondola glided away, then out through the turnabout and he crossed to one of the center pillars to get out of the flow of still fairly heavy foot traffic. With coloring closer to the El Tigrians, he didn’t stand out in the crowd the way Mags had before she’d worked her magic with the scarf and her face paints. Yet even so, he was an obvious gringo. So he found a spot in the shadow of a column that at least partially concealed him as he kept an eye on the two remaining cars that had entered the terminal behind his. Best-case scenario, Joaquin had caught the car still approaching. If that were the case Mags would be in the wind before the guy cleared his gondola.

But, of course, that would’ve been too easy, and even as Finn watched, Joaquin pushed past an elderly couple who were exiting the furthermost gondola, then stopped dead to survey the crowd. The cabin’s remaining few occupants split to flow around him like a stream circling a boulder.

The cartel enforcer, or whatever the hell he was, stood silently as seconds stretched into eternity. His gaze intent, he appeared to be sectioning the area into quadrants and scrutinizing each closely. After several moments that felt like hours to Finn, Joaquin turned back as if he planned to catch the next group of gondolas already entering the station.

Finn breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Prematurely, as it turned out, because Joaquin suddenly spun around, then leaped up onto a bench against the inside wall and stood on his toes, obviously craning to see something. Seconds later, he leaped down from the bench and sprinted for the down escalator.

“Son of a bitch!” Clipping together his backpack’s belt to keep it from bouncing, Finn took off after him. Chasing an armed-to-the-teeth maniac was not how he’d intended to spend his vacation.

Yet how would he live with himself if he walked away and Baby Psycho hurt Mags?

Or worse. Because hurt was probably putting a pretty face on things. God knew Joaquin hadn’t seemed the least bit averse to shooting her or stabbing him.

Mags had done a good job of disguising herself, so how the hell had the kid recognized her? He understood Joaquin exiting the car at the station. Subjecting each station to at least a cursory check was just good business sense, and the way the cars crept through the station with a new gondola always less than a minute behind, it wasn’t as if the guy would have missed his ride if he failed to spot her. But that was the logic of a mature mind and the boy had struck Finn as a whole lot more reactionary than a logical thinker.

So maybe someone coached him. But how had he recognized Mags?

The streets around the station were busy when he burst through the exit a few minutes later and he moved to the side of the door to get his bearings.

At first all he could see was the kaleidoscope of people moving up and down a long narrow avenue made of multicolored pavers. But taking a page from Joaquin’s playbook, he climbed onto a bulkhead that separated a restaurant’s outdoor tables from the sidewalk traffic and sectioned the area into quadrants. He started with the one dead ahead of him.

And spotted Mags by the color of her headgear a couple of blocks ahead of him. When he shortened his focus to the area between them, he located Joaquin as well. And the other man was a helluva lot closer to her than Finn was.

Determined to eliminate that distance, he set off at a dead run.

He was closing in on Joaquin when Mags stopped at an ancient car that looked as though it was held together by spit and rubber bands. He also saw Joaquin stop. The young man pulled that damn gun from the back of his pants and took a serious-looking shooting stance.

But then Joaquin seemed to hesitate. His heart crowding his throat, Finn put on an additional burst of speed just as the other man called, “Magdalene?”

With a whole lot less certainty in his voice than Finn had heard before.

So he wasn’t sure it was her. If Mags played her cards right, she’d ignore Joaquin, get in her car and take off as if his insistent shout had nothing to do with her. It wasn’t like the kid could follow her on foot.

She clearly wasn’t a card player, however, for she whipped around just as Finn came up behind Joaquin.

And as if sensing an impending threat, the cartel soldier started to turn, but Finn, who had several inches on him, drove his elbow into the vein he saw throbbing on the side of Joaquin’s neck, then snapped the back of his fist into the side of the thug’s face.

“Ow! Jesus!” He cupped his hand to his chest, feeling like he’d fractured his knuckles on the kid’s hard head. But at least Joaquin dropped like a stone. Once again his gun clattered away, but this time with a better outcome since Finn was able to snatch it up and shove it into the front of his own waistband. He didn’t have time to check that the safety was on. But he did cross himself and say a quick prayer that he didn’t shoot his dick off.

Because there was an outcome that didn’t bear thinking about.

Although, looking on the damn bright side, it at least would put an end to all this bullshit agonizing over should he or shouldn’t he be thinking about settling down.

He heard the whine of an overworked car engine reversing faster than sounded wise and looked up from using one hand to relieve Joaquin of his knife and feeling for a pulse with the other to see Mags’s junker. At the same time, he felt a thump beneath his fingertips—and had mixed feelings. He’d give a bundle not to have to spend the entire time he was down here looking over his shoulder. But neither did he want anyone’s blood on his hands.

Shelving the dilemma when the car screeched to a stop alongside him so abruptly its chassis rocked on its axles, he pushed back from where he was crouched over Joaquin’s unconscious body.

Mags leaned toward the passenger window. “Get in!”

He climbed to his feet and got in. She burned rubber the ancient tires couldn’t afford to lose getting out of there and Finn retrieved the gun from its precarious hiding place and leaned forward to slide it under his seat.

Without taking her gaze from the road, she reached across the seat and gripped his wrist. “Thank you,” she said fervently, her palm warm against his skin. “Again.” She gave him a quick glance before turning her attention back to the road. “I made that necessary twice in one day. It was dumb of me to answer when he called my name.”

“That’s how we learn.” He watched as her long, narrow fingers slipped away. Then he raised his eyes to study her face. “So. Magdalene, huh?”

She scowled. “Nobody calls me that but my parents.”

He didn’t understand why, since he thought it was a prettier name than Mags, if not as hipster cool. But he merely shrugged. “Where you heading?”

“As far away from here as I can. Then I need to get to a phone. I know my mother mentioned the Munoz grow farm in one of her letters but I kind of skimmed the part that said where it was. If it actually did say.” She took her gaze off the road long enough to give him a quick grimace. “It didn’t seem important at the time so I don’t really remember.”

She flapped a hand at him. “In any case, I’ll call my neighbor to see if she’ll go over to my place and try to find the reference in one of my letters. It wasn’t that many mailings ago.”

“Are you kidding me?” Not being hampered by anything so modern as a seat belt, he turned in his seat to stare at her. “Your big idea is to head right into the heart of a cartel?”

“I plan to get my folks away from one, yes.”

“Are you undercover DEA?”

She snorted. “Do I look like a drug enforcement agent?”

“Ah, the always popular answer-a-question-with-a-question ploy—I’ll take that as a no. You trained in special ops, then?”

She sighed. “I’m guessing you know I’m not that, either.”

“Then I suggest you get back on your meds, darlin’, because you clearly have suicidal tendencies if you’re self-aware enough to know you lack said training, yet intend to tackle an organized syndicate, anyhow.”

“I do not have suicidal tendencies! I didn’t say I was going in there with guns blazing—supposing I even had a gun. But if I can pinpoint the farm, then I can take that information to the nearest US embassy. They should know which agency to contact to get my folks out.”

“Let the cops pinpoint the farm!”

“You think they haven’t tried, Finn?” For the first time he heard frustration in her voice and realized that up until now she’d actually been damn calm about all the violence aimed her way. “The government’s been aerial spraying the crap out of every grow spot they hear about, so if Munoz’s operation is still intact, the way Joaquin made it sound, it’s because the cops don’t have a clue where it’s located.” Making a face, she turned off the main street. “With the possible exception of his cousin, that is. But for all we know, they could have a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. And even if they don’t...well, clearly he isn’t talking.”

She turned two more corners before glancing over at him again. “In any case, it’s not your problem. Where do you want me to drop you off?”

His teeth clenched so tight he felt muscles jump in his temples and jaw. “Not my problem?” he said in a low, quiet voice that would have had his siblings backing away. “You don’t think it’s a bit of a problem that if I wanna stick around Santa Rosa I’d better be prepared to keep a constant eye peeled for a homicidal maniac who probably hasn’t even seen his twenty-first birthday? Because, sister, that boy’s gonna be gunning for my ass.”

She shot him a stricken glance but he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at the moment. “Much as I sympathize with your plight, lady, you’re not the only one who got sucked into this mess.” He twisted around to look behind them, then blew out a breath and settled forward again when he saw the road was empty.

Then he looked over at Mags. Her face was set in determined concentration and her hands held the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white beneath her skin. She hadn’t asked for this any more than he had, and he knew he oughta cut her some slack.

But his temper, always slow to rise, was equally poky to cool back down once it had. So, even as he regretted the flatness in his voice, he said, “Whataya say we just drive the hell away from here until we put some distance between us and this cartel that thinks it’s copacetic to try to kill us? Once we get that part down pat I’ll be happy to explore the issue of where to drop me.”

CHAPTER THREE

JOAQUIN DRUMMED IMPATIENT fingertips against his thigh as he waited to be admitted to Victor Munoz’s inner sanctum. He’d been cooling his heels for twenty minutes and was tired of waiting. Yet the moment the door opened, he braced himself, suddenly wishing he had more time to prepare. Because while his boss was mostly a reasonable man, during those times when he wasn’t, he was really not. As in, psycho not.

And there was no predicting which reaction you’d get.

But the one thing Joaquin could be certain he’d always get was El Tigre’s most powerful drug lord. Standing now in the doorway of his plush office, dressed in pristine white linen, Munoz looked at him with a hooded gaze. “It is done?” he demanded in the English he insisted upon whenever he met Joaquin in his office. “You have brought her to me?”

Easing out his breath, Joaquin collected himself, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Boss. They got away.”

For a second Munoz’s expression was noncommittal. Then his eyes turned to obsidian ice. “Define they.”

“Deluca’s daughter and some gringo who interfered both times that I had her. I don’t know if they knew each other beforehand or if he’s merely a do-gooder who just can’t stop himself from sticking his nose in my business. They weren’t actually together either time, but were definitely in the same areas.”

He couldn’t bring himself to admit that one or the other of the North Americans had relieved him of his gun and his knife. Not that it was hard to get his hands on any weapon he desired—he could replace what was stolen from him with the snap of his fingers. Retaining his boss’s good opinion, on the other hand—

Well, that might not be as easily achieved.

Munoz swore creatively, but as quickly as his anger surfaced it disappeared behind a calm facade again. This was because Munoz was a businessman. And temper, as his boss was fond of saying so frequently, had “no place in business.”

Cold comfort, Joaquin thought, to the man he’d seen Munoz gun down while still in the grip of this temper that had no place.

But that had no bearing on the here and now. He shoved the memory into a shadowy corner of his mind as the older man stood aside and indicated he should step into his office.

“The fault is not entirely yours,” Munoz said in a rare near-apologetic tone as he rounded his desk to take his seat. He waved Joaquin into one of the two guest chairs. “As it turns out, the blame in this instance can be laid at my madre’s feet.”

Joaquin shivered and surreptitiously crossed himself. He had no idea how old the venerable Augustina Munoz was. If he were to judge by her thick, sturdy shoes, eye-liftingly tight bun and perpetual black, head-to-toe clothing, he’d say she must be closing in on the hundred-year mark. Yet considering how surprised he’d be if Victor had reached his fiftieth birthday, that probably wasn’t so. Unless, of course, she had her son late in life.

But he was once again veering from the track. He’d only wondered about her age because Senora Munoz wasn’t even five feet tall and she was a scrawny little thing. He doubted she’d tip the scales at a hundred pounds if she was soaking wet and had a concrete block tied to one ankle.

But the woman was crazy scary. He licked lips gone dry at the mere thought of what she could do and whispered the unthinkable aloud. “She threatened you with the mal de ojo, didn’t she?”

Anyone who had half a brain knew not to displease Mama Munoz. She’d lock you in the crosshairs of her evil eye in a heartbeat and your cojones would shrivel up and fall off.

And that was only if she was feeling charitable.

All the same...

“But, no,” he said, shaking his head as he answered his own question. “A mother would never do that to her own son.”

“Mine would,” Munoz disagreed. “And she did. She has strong opinions, my mamita.” To Joaquin’s surprise, the older man sounded proud of the fact. But the pleasure in his eyes faded as he focused on Joaquin.

“You know as well as I do,” Victor said, “that the Deluca woman has been a thorn in my side for some time now with her constant interference in my business. I speak, of course, of the missionary, not the daughter you failed to bring me.” Annoyance snapped in Victor’s eyes and his voice grew clipped with the unnecessary clarification, causing Joaquin’s blood to cool considerably.

But then the older man seemed to forget his pique as he selected a cigarillo from the ornate humidor on his desk. He didn’t bother offering Joaquin one, but Joaquin was perfectly happy to be ignored when he saw how, in the wake of lighting the small cigar with a gold lighter, Munoz seemed to wave his spurt of displeasure away along with the perfect blue smoke ring he blew out. Then the drug lord turned his attention back to the subject under discussion.

“I was through having my new recruits tell me they couldn’t run drugs because Senora Deluca said it was wrong. But when I said to my lieutenant in the privacy of this office that the mouthy Deluca needs to be silenced once and for all, my mama, who is studying her Bible two floors away, she sends for me and says no killing of the missionary. The woman has the ears of a ghost bat and she insists that even though the Deluca is a Baptist and not one of the True Faith, she is a woman who does good works and makes our people’s lives better.” He fixed his gaze on Joaquin. “So I expect you to find Deluca’s daughter and bring her to me. She’s my leverage to make the missionary toe the line.”

“I’m not sure where she is,” Joaquin admitted. “The man, he knocked me out so I didn’t see which way she leaves. All I know for certain is she is driving a—how do you say it?—a ruin of a rental car.”

“A wreck?”

“Sí. This.”

Munoz pinned him in his sights. “Then track this rental car down—it’s a place to start.” Shrugging, he swung his heels atop his desk and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “At least we have in our favor the fact that she thinks her parents are in the States and doesn’t realize they’re being held at the farm.”

Joaquin opened his mouth to correct Munoz’s mistaken assumption, but then snapped it shut without revealing what he’d done. He didn’t plan to end up like the last hombre who had displeased the boss, staring with fixed, sightless eyes at this very ceiling while his blood pooled on the tiles beneath his body.

So he forced a smile. “Sí,” he agreed as strongly as he could. “At least she doesn’t know that.”

* * *

MAGS STARED AT the water dripping from the rental car’s radiator hose onto the potholed macadam and felt her frustration grow. When it came to most things mechanical, she was hopelessly unqualified. Still, needing to do something, she gave the nearest tire a hard kick.

And oh, crap. That hurt.

Determined not to let her travel companion see the result of her childish fit of temper she turned her head away so that even if he looked, which he didn’t show any actual sign of doing, he wouldn’t see the tears that rose in her eyes.

She blinked rapidly to help speed their retreat. But the tears kept mounting because she couldn’t ignore the fact that she and Finn Kavanagh were in the middle of nowhere. Admittedly, that wasn’t unusual in this country where most of the population centered around a handful of cities, but they were still who knew how many miles from even the smallest township. With a dead car.

“Worthless piece of crap,” she muttered.

“That’s not necessarily true.” Finn, squatting on the road in front of the car’s raised hood, quit pawing through his backpack to look up at her.

Strictly to disagree, of course. They’d only known each other a few hours and already she understood that they looked at darn few things through the same spectrum. Turning away, she hastily wiped away her stupid, stubborn tears.

“This car’s actually in better shape than she looks,” he said with an irritating good cheer that made her want to kick another tire. She turned back to see him once again digging through his bag. A second later, he made a satisfied noise deep in his throat and pulled out a roll of red tape. “This oughta fix her,” he said and surged easily to his feet.

“What? Really?” Her tears evaporating along with her foul mood, she stepped forward to see. Not that she had the first idea what was so magical about the tape that it could restore function to their rental—and probably wouldn’t even if it came with detailed instructions.

“Yep. Here, hold this.” He handed her the roll. “Put your fingers through the spool like so.” He touched his index fingertips together to demonstrate.

She did as directed and, standing this close, gained an unwelcome awareness of the clean scent of his skin. To keep herself from staring at the damp cotton that banded his biceps and stretched across his strong chest, she looked down at the roll slowly rotating around her finger bridge as he unspooled a length. It had some kind of plasticky substance that kept the layers from touching. “What is this stuff?”

“Silicone tape,” he said as he separated a good foot of it from the roll. “Best invention ever. It tolerates high temperatures and sticks to itself. That adhering part’s no small deal, because it eliminates the need for clamps.” He looked around and, with a jut of his jaw, indicated the knife he’d liberated from Joaquin. “Hand me that, will ya?”

Sliding one hand free of the roll, she reached for the knife and passed it to him. Finn sliced off the length he needed, then turned back and bent over the engine compartment. Mags leaned to watch over his shoulder as he peeled the plastic strip from the tape a few inches at a time, wrapped the revealed silicone tape around the damaged hose and repeated the process, meticulously overlapping each rotation around the tube.

To distract herself from the display of muscle that shifted beneath his skin with every flick of his wrists, she said, “You always bring an emergency roll of tape on your vacations?”

“If I’m going hiking, I do.” He gave her a dark-eyed glance over his shoulder. “Which was my intention, you might recall.”

It was difficult to forget, since guilt over the way she’d dragged him into her mess still made her squirm. But she’d said she was sorry umpteen times since they’d gotten away from Joaquin, so she bit back the fresh apology rising her throat. She had to keep reminding herself that she hadn’t deliberately drawn him in to her mess, that he’d actually inserted himself. Working to let go of her tendency to make it all her fault, she merely said, “Yes.” But she couldn’t resist giving his shoulder a commiserating little there-there pat.

It was unyielding but hot under the damp cloth beneath her fingers and she whipped her hand away. Because, really, it was one thing that she’d kissed the man when she believed she’d never see him again. But now that they were practically living in each other’s pocket, she’d be wise to keep her hands to herself. She cleared her throat and forced lightness into her voice when she said truthfully, if with a slightly sarcastic tone, “You’re a handy guy.”

“I am that, darlin’. There!” He straightened.

She was still hovering over him and his shoulder blades made contact with her boobs, flattening them against the wall of her chest. She took a hasty step back.

And almost fell on her butt when the molded rubber heel of her Tevas caught in a divot in the optimistically termed highway.

Long, work-roughened fingers closed around her upper arm to halt her backward momentum. “Easy there.” He pulled her upright and gave her a comprehensive once-over before he turned her loose.

“Thank you. But I could’ve—”

“Done it your own self,” he said sardonically before she could complete her sentence. “Yeah, yeah. Been there, heard that.”

She huffed out a put-upon sigh and rubbed a hand over her lips with enough vigor to shift them about as though they were made of Silly Putty. The feel of them beneath her fingers reminded her of what she could do to features with her tool kit of tricks. That in turn reminded her of what she was good at—and what she wasn’t. She dropped her hand to her side.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I do like doing things myself.” A girl was much less likely to be disappointed if she didn’t allow herself to become dependent on others. “But, much as I hate to admit it, I would’ve fallen on my keister without your help. So thanks again.”

He looked down at her, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “Dammit, I wish you’d stop doing that.”

“What? What did I do wrong this time?”

“Acted reasonable.”

She felt her mouth drop open and snapped it shut. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“It is when it messes with my conviction that you’re a thoughtless, spoiled brat.”

“Excuse me?” Her hands hit her hips. “I’ll cop to being thoughtless at times. But I’m here to tell you I’ve never been spoiled in my life.”

“Uh-huh.” He gave her a quick up and down perusal. “You’re an only child, right?”

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “But how did you know that?”

“It’s a no-brainer, darlin’—you were way too awestruck by the number of my siblings.” He made a rude sound. “Only someone who’s never dealt with a brother or sister of her own would have that reaction.”

“Maybe I was just astounded that your folks would continue having kids after they rolled you off the production line. No, wait.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You must be the baby of the family. Otherwise, they surely wouldn’t have risked having more like you.”

To her surprise he laughed. “Good one. I’ll have to remember that for Kate.” He met her gaze. “The actual baby of the family. But getting back to you, you had your parents’ undivided attention and you want me to believe you weren’t spoiled rotten?”

It was her turn to snort. “This may come as a shock to you, Kavanagh, but I don’t particularly care what you believe. But as for Nancy and Brian’s undivided attention—my ass, I had that. They shipped me off to boarding school in the States when I was thirteen so they could concentrate on other people’s kids.”

“Whoa.” He stared at her, and for a second she felt a hint of vindication. She knew playing the unwanted-kid card was not cool and, yes, probably smacked of juvenile gamesmanship. She usually put a much better face on things so people wouldn’t realize how much it had destroyed her to learn her parents’ love had come with an expiration date. But he was just so darn smug that it had slipped out.

Apparently she’d misread what she’d taken for sympathy, however. He merely raised those expressive brows and gave her a cool look from his dark, heavily lashed eyes. “And you’re complaining about that? I wish I’d been sent to boarding school. I had to share a bedroom with three brothers.”

“Oh, poor you.” She had to swallow a hot ball of rage at his lack of appreciation for something she’d have given everything she had to possess. “It must have been hell having to put up with companionship and always having someone on your side.”

“Hey, you live in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room with a bunch of big slobs, then we’ll talk.” He thrust a forefinger at her ever-present tote. “You got a bottle of water in that thing?”

She pulled one out and barely resisted throwing it at his head. She did shove it a little harder than necessary into his stomach and took her satisfaction where she could when a quiet “Oof!” burst from his throat.

That contentment died an abrupt death when he lifted his shirt, studied the rock-hard abs he’d exposed and said, “Sure hope that doesn’t bruise my delicate skin.”

Damn him.

It didn’t help that he was Mr. Self-Possessed while she felt like a cartoon character about to have steam explode from her ears with a strident end-of-shift whistle from the sheer overload of bottled-up frustration.

And, fine, lust as well.

But she would cut her tongue out before she’d give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her. Watching him turn away to pour the water into the radiator, she acknowledged that it was too late to unsee the hard ridges of his abdomen and the silky stripe of dark hair that bisected it. She could, however, shove it into a far, dark corner of her mind. And act like the adult she’d been since striking out on her own at eighteen.

But, good Lord. If she behaved this Maggie-middle-school over spying a little man skin, she’d clearly gone far too long without getting any.

She was going to have to do something about that when she got back home.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT THE HELL are you doing, Kavanagh?

It was an excellent question, but Finn shrugged it aside in favor of transporting his backpack and an old beat-up carry-on suitcase Mags had retrieved from the trunk of the car into the tiny room they’d rented for the night in an El Tigre version of a B and B.

He gave the place a cursory glance. Boardinghouse was probably a more accurate description and he gazed over his shoulder, curious to see Mags’s reaction to their accommodations.

She didn’t even seem to notice. She looked worn-out and discouraged as she trudged behind him, that big ol’ purse of hers, which she’d been hauling around with such panache, all but dragging on the floor.

Something about the discouragement her posture conveyed made his gut clench.

Not that her expression lasted once she noticed him looking at her. Because the instant she did, her slightly cleft chin jutted skyward.

Masking the involuntary smile wanting to spread across his face, he dropped his pack and the suitcase to one side of the doorway just inside the cramped accommodations. Then he took one look at the narrow bed and any inclination to smile was wiped away. “I’ll take the floor.”

Given a choice, he’d have taken a different room. But of the three townships they’d come across during the hours spent driving south toward the Amazon, this was the only one that had offered a place with rooms to let. And this room had been the sole vacancy.

“Don’t be silly,” Mags said. “You paid for the room—you oughta sleep in the bed.”

“I’m a hiker, darlin’.” He tapped his backpack with the side of his foot. “I have everything I need right here.”

Looking around, he gave the room a closer inspection. The bedspread was threadbare but immaculate, and not so much as a fleck of dust marred the small scarred dresser next to the bed or the carved crucifix hanging above it. The only other amenity to grace the tiny room, a sturdy wooden chair, held two neatly folded towels and washcloths. All four were thin in texture but blindingly white beneath the light from the dresser lamp.

He turned back to Mags. Her I-don’t-need-your-stinking-help attitude, which seemed to blink on and off like a light in a defective socket, was nowhere to be found at the moment. During a stop a couple of hours back—the last one just before the sun went down with such startling speed—she’d washed off the dark makeup she’d applied in the gondola. And sometime between then and now her fair skin had lost its natural glow, her cheeks their wash of pink.

Squatting in front of his pack, he pulled his ultralight sleep pad out of the deep pouch on the pack’s side and unfastened the straps that attached the sleeping bag to the rucksack’s bottom. He carried both to a spot as far removed from the bed as he could manage and unrolled them. In less than a minute he had his nest prepared and, giving it a pat, he glanced up at Magdalene.

Only to see her sitting on the side of the bed, staring vacantly down at the long, pale fingers she’d threaded together in her lap.

“Hey,” he said softly, rising to his feet. He reached to stroke soothing fingertips to her shoulder, making her jerk and her gaze lock with his. He stroked his thumb over the spot he’d touched. “Didn’t the lady at the desk say something about a bathing room?”

She nodded. “Down the hall.”

“Why don’t you go grab a shower and I’ll see about getting us some food.”

For a moment she simply looked at him, then visibly gathered herself. “You speak Spanish?”

“Sure.” When she merely looked at him, he admitted, “A smidge, anyhow. I understand more than I speak—provided it’s not too rapid-fire.”

Her lips tipped up in a slight smile. “Unfortunately, it requires more than a smidgen in most of these out-of-the-way villages. The people who live in them tend not to travel far from home, so they don’t have the same familiarity working with tourists that their city counterparts do. Add to that how late it is and—” She rose to her feet. “You take the first shower and I’ll go talk to Senora Guerrero about where we can buy some food. I didn’t realize until you brought it up, but I’m starving.”

He watched as she walked from the room and wondered where this weird urge to comfort her, or cheer her up had come from. Hell, he’d grown up with sisters who could manipulate like nobody’s business to get what they wanted. Consequently, his more usual first response when presented with a female who looked at him with big, sad eyes would be to question if he was being played. Not to feel an urge to fix what ailed her.

So why the hell had he wanted to fix things for Magdalene?

He shrugged and let it go. She wasn’t his sister and she’d spent most of their time together bending over backward trying to get him to step away from her problems, not take care of them for her. Besides, offering her the shower had led to her assigning herself a task. And if nothing else, that seemed to give her back some of her energy.

So his job here was done.

He rummaged through his pack for a bar of soap and cautiously sniffed his T-shirt’s underarms to see if he dared put it on again after his shower. Fortunately, his deodorant had held up, but the shirt was limp and still slightly damp. Santa Rosa had been warmly springlike, cradled as it was in the foothills of the Andes. But with every foot of elevation lost and each mile farther south that they’d driven, it had become hotter—until sweat had pretty much been the order of the day. And looking at his watch, Finn saw that although it had just turned ten, even with the small room’s louvered window open, the night was hot and still.

But not quiet. There was a cantina on the corner and the sounds of guitars and merriment were a faint rhythm in the air. At the window insects clicked and whirred as they threw themselves against the thin screen. And somewhere among the cacophony of crickets out in the darkness, frogs croaked and an unidentified creature occasionally barked in a tone eerily seal-like.

He dug through his pack again to retrieve the Rat City Rollergirls T-shirt he’d changed out of in the gondola, then picked a towel up off the chair and headed down the hall. He washed his clammy shirt in the sink, wrung it out as best he could and carefully spread it over the basin. Then he stepped into the shower.

The space was narrow, the water pressure weak, and regardless of how cautious he tried to be, he couldn’t avoid bumping his shoulders or occasionally knocking an elbow against the enclosure walls. The water, however, was wonderfully cool. And when he stepped out several moments later, he felt refreshed.

But he still didn’t have a clue what he was doing here. He and Mags had stopped in a small town below Santa Rosa so she could call her neighbor from a landline. Her cell phone was low-tech and didn’t support international calls. Not that his smartphone was appreciably better. Coverage was spotty everywhere except in cities and more well-populated towns.

On the bright side the woman had been home, but it had taken her a while to find the correct letter from Magdalene’s mother and get back to them with the general location where Nancy Deluca had believed the grow farm to be.

At no time during their wait and the several additional hours they’d driven had there been any sign of Joaquin. So Finn could probably let her take it from here and get back to his vacation.

Except he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the minute he turned his back, Joaquin or someone like him would track her down. And the thought of leaving Magdalene on her own to twist in the wind chafed against every behavior he’d been raised to adhere to when it came to women. So he was sticking until she found the grow farm. And if his decision didn’t exactly thrill him?

It was still accompanied by a strange feeling of relief.

* * *

THE MERE SCENT of the rice and beans and the two fat shellfish-filled empanadas on the tray Mags carried cheered her up. She’d expected to be directed to the cantina for such a late meal, but Senora Guerrero had happily insisted on heating up leftovers for her and Finn.

The thought of the generously poured glasses of wine the older lady had included didn’t hurt her vastly improved outlook. The woman was a love. During their chat as the senora assembled the meal, Mags had admitted how exhausted, yet wired, she felt. Mrs. G. had promptly splashed some rich red wine into a glass for her, then poured the rest into the additional two goblets to add to the serving tray.

Mags acknowledged she was running on fumes. She’d rolled out of her cushy pillow-top bed in LA at zero-dark-thirty this morning and felt as if she’d been awake for a straight two days rather than the nineteen or so hours it had actually been. And the minute, the very instant, she finished eating, she planned to grab that shower, then tumble into bed.

What she didn’t intend to do was turn herself inside out any longer stressing over Finn’s involvement in her mama’s drama. He seemed okay with it—at least for the most part. She’d simply have to find a way to be so as well.

Arriving back at their shared room, she balanced the tray on one hip and freed a hand to turn the doorknob. After taking the platter in both hands once more, she used her left hip to push the door all the way open, then backed into the room, turning as the tray cleared the opening. She spotted Finn over by the chair, spreading a wet T-shirt atop his damp towel over the chair’s back. “You ready to eat?”

“Oh, hell, yeah.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “Man, that smells good.” Finger-combing his hair back, he came over to her and took the tray. “Oh, God, you even scored us some wine. You are a goddess.”

“I know, right?” She shot him a grin. “About the wine, that is, not the goddess part. Give me hot food and a nice glass of red and for this moment, at least, life is good.”

He looked down at the platter in his hands. “Where do you want this?”

She liberated a plate, balanced her cutlery atop it and sank to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the bed. She patted the tile next to her hip. “Right here is fine.”

“Works for me.” He handed her a glass of wine and sat down next to her with his own food and drink. For the next several minutes the only sound in the room was the clink of silverware against the brightly patterned crockery and the slight tap of their glasses when they set them back on the tile floor between sips of wine.

After scraping up the last of his empanada, Finn set his fork on his plate and the plate on the tray and rested his head back against the side of the bed. “I’m beat,” he said. “I’ll take the dishes downstairs while you take your shower, then I’ve gotta hit the sack. I’ve been up since three a.m.”

“You just came in today, too?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yes. And I only had a half hour’s more sleep than you.” She climbed to her feet and started gathering her towel and a few toiletries together. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

It wasn’t much longer than that when she returned to the room, but Finn was already sound asleep, an occasional snore erupting between deep, regular breaths.

She couldn’t prevent herself from staring at him as she towel-dried her hair. He hadn’t bothered unzipping his sleeping bag and he sprawled atop it in a posture that combined side and stomach sleeping. She knew it was hot in the room, but she found it hard to ignore the fact that he wore nothing but a pair of black-waistbanded, gray boxer briefs.

One muscular up-drawn leg stuck out to the side and his head was cradled atop biceps that looked much too hard to be comfortable. His back was an art-class study in wide shoulders, long, supple spine and the hard, rounded curve of a butt that gave way to yard-long, leanly muscled legs. And all that bare skin gleamed with good health beneath the lamplight he’d left on for her.

Pulling off the shorts she’d donned to traverse the hallway, she folded them atop her suitcase, then applied lotion to her arms and legs. Dressed in only her undies and a tank top, she quickly braided her damp hair, turned off the lamp and, tossing back the spread, slid between the sheets.

She fell asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.

* * *

IT FELT LIKE five minutes later when someone shook her shoulder. Trying to shrug the irritant aside, she rolled onto her side.

But the touch returned with even more insistence, and she cracked an eye open. “Mmmph?”

“Wake up, senorita,” Senora G. said in an adamant whisper. “You have to leave.”

Mags pushed up onto one elbow and blinked up at the older woman, trying to make out her features in the dark room. “Leave?” she repeated in confusion. “Why?”

“I walked over to the cantina to have a drink with my neighbors and a man came in demanding to know if we’d seen a couple answering to your and Senor Finn’s description.”

A cold dose of water to the face couldn’t have worked better to wake her fully. “A young man?”

“Sí. I did not like his looks.” A slight displacement of air against Mags’s face suggested Mrs. G. waved her hand. “Not his looks,” she amended. “His...manner.”

“If he’s who I think he is, you’re right to be leery of him. His name is Joaquin and he works for a dangerous drug lord.” Hearing a rustling, she raised her voice slightly. “Finn, are you awake?”

“Yeah. Did I hear Joaquin’s name?”

“Yes. We gotta get out of here.” She relayed the senora’s news.

He was a shadowy figure sliding off his sleeping bag, and she rose onto her knees to turn on the lamp. Blinking against the sudden light, she saw him crouched in front of his bedroll, readying its two pieces with swift efficiency for a return to their respective places on his pack.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Tell Mrs. G. that when Joaquin shows up here she needs to tell him the truth—that she rented us a room. And for her own safety, she should try to act surprised when he finds us gone.”

Mags interpreted for Senora Guerrero as she scrambled into her clothing, then translated Mrs. G.’s reciprocal warning to be as quiet as possible because Hector down the hall was both a light sleeper and an incorrigible gossip. Looking at her watch, Mags saw she’d slept longer than it had felt like. It was almost 1:00 a.m.

Finn finished dressing before her, and the instant he had his shoes tied, he carried his gear over to the backpack. After storing it, he glanced over at Mags’s suitcase, then turned those dark eyes on her. For a single brief, hot moment his gaze slipped over her still bare legs before rising to meet her eyes.

“We might not be able to get to the car and if that turns out to be the case it’s gonna be difficult to move fast hauling a suitcase. I have a little room in my pack for some of your stuff. You think maybe you can fit part of it into your purse?”

She nodded and grabbed a change of clothing, a sweater in case the evenings grew cooler than tonight, clean undies, socks, a pair of shoes to supplement her sandals and, after a brief internal debate, her performance gear. She handed a share of it to Finn and stuffed the rest into her tote. She pinned up her braid, tied another scarf around her head to disguise her hair color and used a pencil to quickly darken her eyebrows and draw a beauty mark next to her upper lip.

Finn swung the rucksack onto his back and came over to the senora. “Muchas gracias,” he said with palpable heartfelt appreciation and bent to press a fleeting kiss upon the older woman’s forehead. Then he turned to Mags.

“Let’s move,” he said briskly, and headed with long-legged strides for the door.

She followed in his wake.

The senora was right behind her. “Leave through the kitchen,” she said in a low voice.

Finn had already entered the room before Mags could finish speculating how much she dared raise her voice to translate Senora Guerrero’s instruction. He made a beeline for the back door, but Mrs. G. raced to place herself between him and the exit. She put a hand on his chest and pointed first to herself, then out the door.

Stepping back, he nodded, and the senora grabbed a lidded earthenware pot from the counter, turned off the kitchen light and opened the back door. She carried the pot over to a compost heap and emptied the kitchen waste onto it, glancing casually around the small yard as she did so. Straightening, she made a small, close-to-her-body hand gesture to indicate they should come out.

She and Finn had no sooner stepped into the yard when a pounding commenced on the front door and for a second Mags thought her heart had stopped. Then it thundered in her chest with such force she was surprised the entire neighborhood didn’t start yelling for her to keep it down out there. Mrs. G. scuttled past them into the kitchen and quietly closed the door behind her. Mags jumped when Finn’s work-roughened fingers suddenly wrapped around her wrist.

He placed the knife he’d liberated from Joaquin in her hand, and she saw that he’d retrieved the gun as well.

“Come on,” he breathed and edged around the corner of the house.

For a second she stared down at the knife in horror. Then she gave herself a mental shake and took a giant step to catch up.

He put a hand back to halt her when they reached the front corner of the house and cautiously he craned his head to look around its edge. Almost immediately, he pulled back and lowered his mouth to her ear. “There’s a guy keeping an eye on our car,” he said. “And there’s an SUV in front of it that’s too shiny and new to belong to anyone but city guys.” He hesitated, then asked, “What are your thoughts on distracting him while I disable it?”

Her stomach went queasy and she wanted to say, “Are you out of your freaking mind?” Instead, she whispered, “No problem,” and handed him back the knife. She yanked her tank top down to showcase some cleavage and tucked it into her shorts to keep it low and tight. “I’d better cut through the neighbors’ yards, though. Coming out of this one won’t help our cause.”

“Wait.” He gripped her arm. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” His voice was surprisingly fierce for a tone so low-pitched. “Because on second thought, putting you in danger doesn’t seem like such a hot idea.”

No shit, Sherlock, her mind agreed, so relieved she wanted to break into a dance. Because it really was a lousy idea. But her big mouth said, “And yet, it’s the only idea we have. And I really like the thought of you disabling their car. Otherwise, they’ll be right on our tushies, and if that’s the case I don’t think we’ll have a prayer of shaking them.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Here, then.” He thrust the gun at her. “Take this.”

Her hands flew back, palms out, in repudiation. “I’m not going to shoot the guy!”

“Then use it like a hammer if you need to,” he said in a hard whisper. “Because, baby, if it comes down to you or him, better that you’re the one who walks away.”

True. But still—

“I’ve never handled a gun in my life, Finn. He’s more likely to take it away and use it against me.”

“Then, here.” He held out the knife. “Take this back.”

“No. It’s too big and the same thing applies. Plus, you might need it to disable the car.”

He studied her for a nanosecond, then nodded. “Okay. You have anything small and sharp in that behemoth purse?”

“Yes!” She dug out a pair of pointy little manicure scissors and immediately felt better to have some kind of weapon she could easily hide.

Finn looked less than impressed with her choice, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he bent down and pressed the same kind of kiss to her forehead that he’d given Senora Guerrero. She felt surprisingly strengthened by it.

Then he stepped back. “Good luck, Magdalene.”

“Mags,” she insisted.

“Mags,” he agreed and repeated, “Good luck. And be careful.”

“You, too.” She turned and went to the back of the yard before crossing to the one next door, then slipped through that and a couple more fenceless adjoining yards. As she crept along the side of a little house several down from Senora Guerrero’s, she pulled out a richly pigmented lipstick and dabbed some on her mouth, rubbed her lips to give her what she hoped was a just-been-thoroughly-kissed look, then massaged the color that had transferred to her fingertips into the apples of her cheeks.

She waited until the man standing guard over their rental car turned his back, then stepped out onto the narrow concrete sidewalk bordering the packed-dirt road that ran through the village. She was only two buildings away from the cantina and as she began walking back toward the boardinghouse, she drew in a calming breath, then slowly eased it out.

She could do this. She’d spent practically every Saturday since she was nineteen years old performing on the streets. Of course it was more posing than true acting.

She swallowed a snort. Because she’d been acting, one way or another, since five months, two weeks and three days after her thirteenth birthday. This was simply more of the same, only with more physical risk at stake. So she shook out her hands.

And called out in friendly, faintly slurred Spanish, “See you tomorrow, Rosita!”

CHAPTER FIVE

AT THE SOUND of Mags’s voice, the man guarding their rental car whirled to face her. He had the excessively developed muscularity of a weight lifter lacking an enough-is-enough gene. He also looked like a guy who could turn mean as a snake with very little provocation, and that had her second-and third-guessing herself in the suspended seconds he stared at her through narrowed eyes.

Then it apparently sank in that she was a lone woman with weapon-free hands and the tension in his burly shoulders eased. He slipped the gun held close to his side into the back of his waistband.

Flashing him a loose, friendly smile, Mags pretended not to notice. But she thought, Gotcha, when she saw his chest puff out.

“Hola.” Adding a swing to her hips and the occasional faint stagger to her stride, she made her way toward him with the exaggerated care of a drunk. “I know every one in town,” she said as she reached the trunk of the rental and eased her tote down her arm and onto the packed dirt road, “And have since birth, so I know you’re not from around here. I’m Benita.” She pulled back her shoulders a bit. “Who are you?”

“Frederico.” He seemed to be speaking directly to her breasts, and even though her aim had been precisely that—to utilize whatever assets she had to distract him—she couldn’t help but wish she hadn’t showcased her boobs quite so effectively.

Not that she could do anything about it now. She tilted her head toward the boardinghouse. “Are you staying at Senora Guerrero’s?”

“No. We’re just here to see if someone we know stopped for the night.”

She made a derisive sound deep in her throat and doodled a design in the dirt that covered the rental’s trunk. Its hood was only feet behind the cargo hatch of Frederico’s sleek black SUV and he stood next to the rental’s passenger-side door. He stared at her, not even pretending he wasn’t checking her out. It was creepy, but luring him down here so Finn could work whatever magic he planned on the SUV shouldn’t be too difficult.

Despite the thug’s definite awareness, however, her near snort had his brows drawing together. “Are you mocking me?”

“What? No.” She managed not to sigh, but she’d forgotten about the Latino machismo. “It’s just that, other than you, no one of interest has stopped in this town for a very long time.” She waved a hand, staggered as if the action had thrown her off balance, then slapped her hand down on the trunk to catch herself. “Well, I did hear in the cantina that a couple of americanos are spending the night here, but I didn’t actually meet them.” She shrugged. “Not that I would’ve been able to talk to them anyway—americanos never bother to learn our language, you know?”

His expression said he agreed wholeheartedly, but he merely nodded.

She licked her lips. “You’re very handsome. Where are you from?”

He left his post next to the passenger door and swaggered down to her end. “Santa Rosa.”

“Ay! You are so lucky! I would love to see Santa Rosa someday!”

“You have never been?”

“No. It is far away and I have no car.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Finn slide out of the shadows. “But hopefully someday.” She turned to lean her rear against the back of the vehicle and patted the fender next to her hip.

“Still,” she said, tilting her head to look up as if she didn’t care one way or the other if he joined her, “I bet you don’t have a view in the city that can rival our sky.”

It was certainly like nothing she had seen for far too many years. Yet as if her first thirteen years in El Tigre had imprinted it in her DNA, it was a sight she’d carried with her wherever she went. Even in the dead of night—or in this case, earliest morning—the sky was a deep midnight blue strewn with a million stars. Many shimmered dimly and looked every bit the hundreds of light-years away that they were. Others burned brightly and seemed close enough to reach up and gather by the fistful.

Frederico merely shrugged, however, unimpressed. “Give me the bright lights of the city any day,” he said, leaning against the trunk next to her. He turned to give her a smoldering once-over. “I like looking at you, though.”

She brought a hand up to brush back her hair and maybe buy herself a few moments’ reprieve from the intent she saw building in his expression. Just in time she remembered the elaborate head wrap she’d created to disguise the fact she was a blonde. But the action brought her hand into her line of sight and even in the dim light she was sidetracked by how dirty her index finger had gotten from writing on the trunk. Without thought, she popped it in her mouth and sucked.

An unfortunate impulse, as it turned out, and one she regretted immediately. But before she could even grimace at the taste, Frederico whipped an arm around her and yanked her first to her feet, then into his arms. Her mouth went slack in surprise and the finger she’d been about to spit out slid free. Then faster than she could catch her breath he slammed his mouth over hers.

Her hands automatically flew up to shove him away and as they met the cloth over his chest it was all she could do to suppress the instinctive urge to push, and push hard. She curled her fingers into the fabric to keep herself from doing so and managed to stand docilely. But this venture had failure written all over it because docile was all she could pull off. She simply wasn’t a good enough actress to pretend she enjoyed this slob’s attentions.

Her brain was still rapidly looking for a way out that didn’t include her and Finn being gunned down or captured, when Frederico wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her onto the trunk of the car. Then he slid his meaty paws up her waist, her diaphragm, clearly aiming for her breasts.

Oh, no. That is so not gonna happen!

Luckily, before she could blow everything, Finn materialized behind the cartel thug. She watched as he raised the gun he held by its barrel and brought the pistol grip down hard against Frederico’s head. The crack as it made contact sounded like thunder to her overstimulated senses.

Then Frederico’s dead weight came down on her like a felled tree. It was far too late to dodge out of his way and feeling his slack heaviness picking up velocity as it tipped her upper body backward, she feared his overmuscled mass would slam her head right through the rear window.

But Finn caught the cartel enforcer by the back of his collar and belt and hauled him upright, holding him in place long enough to move between her and Frederico and shove a shoulder into the thug’s gut to carry him in a firemen’s lift.

“Move,” he said in a low rough voice and stepped out of her way.

She moved, sliding off the trunk with alacrity to follow him.

In a few long-legged strides he was at the back of the SUV, reaching for its cargo release with his free hand. It clicked open and he took a large step back to allow the hatch to rise. He looked over at her.

For a second she could have sworn she saw fury etched on his face. But that didn’t make sense. And since he merely said in a neutral voice, “See if you can find the latch to pop the hood,” she decided she must have misunderstood. He bundled Frederico handily into the cargo space.

She picked up her tote, then hurried to open the driver’s door on the SUV. It took her what felt like forever to locate the hood latch, but finally she released it, then quickly eased the door closed to kill the light. She turned...and literally bounced off Finn’s chest as he strode toward the hood.

He caught her by the upper arms and steadied her, then set her aside. “We have to get the hell out of here,” he said. “Joaquin’s gonna be out any minute.”

“Did you disable the car?”

“I slashed a couple tires, but I’m going to grab the distributor cap and cut the radiator hose as well.”

“I thought having possession of these babies might help slow him down, too.” She dangled the keys she’d found in a section of the console between the front seats.

For just a second he stared at them as if hypnotized. “Damn. If I knew the keys were in the car, we’d have taken this rig instead of the rental.” But he apparently shook off the regret that sounded in his voice with a brisk roll of his shoulders and leaned into the engine compartment.

In practically the same movement he straightened back up, a car part hanging from his fist. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They dived into the car and Finn had just fired it up and put it in gear when Senora Guerrero’s front door opened with a crash. Joaquin stormed out, his gun swinging around to take aim at them.

“Duck!” Finn snapped, then leaned over the steering wheel himself to provide a smaller target.

She bent below the window just as he stomped on the gas. She heard the report of a gun, but not the sound of the bullet hitting anything. A nervous laugh escaped her and she slowly sat up as Finn shot out of range between the few buildings that constituted the village center. “He missed. Oh, thank God. He missed, Finn!”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Darkness, not lightened appreciably by the thick blanket of stars, enclosed the countryside as they left the meager lights of the township in their rearview mirror.

She blinked...and realized her mouth was opening and closing like a trout’s. She snapped it shut, only to open it again and croak in genuine bewilderment, “What?”

“With Mister Handsy—what the hell did you think you were doing?”

“Excuse me?” She hauled herself upright in her seat and swung to face him, outrage muscling aside the icy terror that the past several minutes had wrapped around the scant dregs of her courage. “You asked me to distract him, to put myself in danger—then believe you have the right to critique the way I handled it?” She glared at him. “What did you think was going to happen? That I’d pull out a deck of cards and challenge him to a game of Go Fish?”

He took his attention off the road to pin her with cold eyes. “I didn’t think you’d invite him to stargaze, then suck off your finger like it was his di—”

Rage such as she hadn’t felt since she was thirteen going on fourteen exploded in her brain, red-hot and out of control. Her usual fail-safes—not engaging, taking deep breaths, hell, taking a moment to prevent herself from acting before thinking—went up in smoke and she launched herself at him, fists swinging.

“What the fu—?” He fought the car as it swerved across the dirt road.

The vehicle’s wild rocking barely even registered as Mags landed blows in any undefended spot she could find. “You dare say that to me, you pimping son of a shit?” she demanded, further enraged when she became conscious of the tears welling in her eyes. With sheer determination she willed them away. Damned if she would let him see he’d made her cry. “That man had his filthy hands, his mouth on me and you dare accuse me of tacitly offering him a blow job?”

She didn’t realize the car had rolled to a stop at the side of the road until Finn’s strong arms wrapped around her, pinning hers to her side.

“Stop that,” he said in a rough, authoritative voice. “We don’t have time for this.” But his arms tightened even more and one big hand roughly stroked her head, dislodging her head wrap. “I apologize, Magdalene. That was a crappy thing to say.”

“It was an asshole thing to say. And my name is Mags.” Her nose was squashed against the hard plane of his chest, her back arched at an awkward angle and, all told...? “This has gotta be the worst stinking birthday of my life.” And just as she’d thought in the Santa Rosa cantina what felt like aeons rather than half a day ago, that was saying something.

He jerked against her, further torturing her nose, and she could feel him tucking in his chin to look down at her.

She wasn’t about to return his regard.

“It’s your birthday?”

Okay, maybe not technically, since it was after midnight. “Well, it was when I fell asleep,” she muttered sulkily. So, close enough.

* * *

“CLOSE ENOUGH,” Finn unknowingly echoed Mags’s thought as guilt piled upon guilt. God, hadn’t he just been a prince among men with her today? His mom would be so proud.

But they needed to focus on the here and now, and he gently moved her back to her side of the front seat.

“I really am sorry,” he said. “That was uncalled for and I have no excuse except that I’m tired, stressed out and pissed off, and I took it out on you. But as willing as I’d be to give you a couple of free shots at me, we’ll have to put that off. We gotta get the hell outta here and put as much distance between us and Joaquin as we can. For all we know, he and Mr. Handsy—”

“Frederico.”

“He and Frederico,” he amended, showing great restraint not spitting the name, “could be taking a villager’s car at gunpoint as we speak.”

Fear flashed across her face, but she simply nodded and leaned her head back against the headrest. So he stomped the gas pedal to the floor and sent them roaring down the highway.

He didn’t try to break the silence. He fully intended, in fact, not to say a word until Mags did. He sure as hell didn’t foresee that being a hardship—he was king when it came to keeping his own counsel.

His brothers had long ago elected him the Kavanagh Construction go-to guy when it came to dealing with difficult clients, suppliers or hired help. He could be counted on to sit quietly and simply listen to a complaint or an excuse until he had its measure. Then he’d either fix it if Kavanagh’s was at fault, which on occasion turned out to be the case, or he’d set the other party straight if he disagreed with the client/vendor/employee’s assessment of the problem. And if a discussion didn’t supply the solution when he knew they were in the right, he was known for simply looking silently at the other person until they started squirming or blurting out all manner of things to fill the silence.

He drove without saying a word for an additional forty-five minutes.

Something about Mags, however, had a way of turning all his usual moves upside down. Apparently she didn’t mind silence any more than he did. And where yesterday he could have outwaited her indefinitely, this morning he found it amazingly difficult.

“I’m playing with the idea of pulling off the road and letting Joaquin and company pass us,” he eventually heard himself say out of the blue. “Hell, we could go back to Senora Guerrero’s and get an actual night’s sleep, then find an alternate route in the morning. Because I sure wouldn’t object to being the trailer for a change instead of the trailed.”

“I wouldn’t mind going back to sleep,” she murmured—apparently to the ceiling headliner, which had curled away in a few places to hang in ragged strips. God knew she’d barely looked at him directly since her blowup. “But there are risks to consider.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, pleased she’d noticed when she’d spent most of the ride staring down at her fingers in her lap. “It’s surprisingly flat in this area and there aren’t a lot of places to hide a car.”

“Sure, that’s one difficulty.” Turning her head without lifting it from the headrest, she looked past his nose and out the side window. “Then there’s the possibility that they might wait to fix the car. Because who the hell knows what runs through Joaquin’s head? He might have thought of the coming-back thing and decided to stay put.”

“Are you kidding me? He’s too stupid to think of something that brilliant.”

This time she did look at him...as if he should be committed.

He snorted. “Fine, say what you want about me.” And after the way he’d dazzled her with his charm that would likely be an earful. “But trust me on this—it’d only be his unwillingness to trade down to one of the villagers’ cars, not any masterminding skills on his part that would keep him there.” He blew out a disgusted breath. “Which still leaves us in front of him.”

“I have to admit, I like the idea of being behind better. It seems a lot easier to keep an eye on what’s ahead of us than constantly having to look over our shoulders.” She straightened suddenly. Looked at him without the distance that had veiled those blue eyes since he’d messed things up. “But if we do have to stay ahead of him,” she said slowly, “we need to maintain our lead. Or, better yet, shake him entirely.”

“I’m all for that. You have an idea how to accomplish it?”

She gave him a decisive nod. “It’s that finding-an-alternate-route thing you brought up. We’ve pretty much been following the Pan-American.”

“It’s the best highway in South America.”

“Yeah, by far. But it’s not the only one.” She gave him a level look. “I’d bet my professional makeup kit, though, that it’s the only one Joaquin has ever considered.”

He felt a slow smile spread across his face and had to fight the urge to hook a hand around the back of her neck and plant a big kiss on her in sheer appreciation. Instead, he settled on saying, “You are brilliant!”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed coolly and pulled the road map out of the glove box. She opened it in her lap.

He knew damn well she couldn’t see a thing. But without missing a beat—or feeling the need to look up, apparently—she said, “Does that overhead light work?”

“You didn’t test all the car’s features before leaving the rental agency?”

She gave him a get-real grunt and he shook his head. She was clearly an in-the-moment woman and not big on planning, which as a carpenter, electrician and, hell, just an all-around builder, he didn’t understand at all. It irritated him. No, who was he kidding, it bugged the hell out of him. But that was his problem and, shaking off his exasperation, he tried the switch on the light above the rearview mirror. Reasonably bright illumination came on.

“Eureka,” she said, raising the map and turning it toward the light. She pored over it quietly for a few moments, then set the still-open map in her lap and turned to him.

“In what looks like fifteen or so miles after we rejoin the Pan-Am, the road to San Vito forks off to the east. The red line marking the roads is still fairly strong for that highway, but when we get to Cordoba and hang a right to head south again it’s not nearly as bold on the map. Which means it’s—” She shook her head. “Okay, I have no clue what condition we’ll find it in. But I bet it’ll be less than optimal. We might have to ask around about gas stations and such before we start down it.” She yawned hugely.

“But that’s for tomorrow,” he said, reaching out and plucking the map from her hands and deftly folding it. “We’re finally getting back into the type of terrain I’ve mostly seen today. So whataya say we find a place where we can get the hell off this road and grab some sleep?”

“Finally,” she muttered. “Something we can agree on.”

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